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March 29, 2017

Climate change programs are up for elimination with the proposed 31 percent cut to the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget and the dismantling of the Clean Power Plan. While environmentalists are protesting this, we are not seeing a grassroots uprising to fight this in the way that Obamacare repeal was fought and defeated. For all the solid science behind climate change and the technological solutions already available or close at hand, we have not found a way for the general public to make an emotional connection to the problem. We have not shown how solutions to climate change can contribute to quality of life here and now, and not just a generation or two later.

Obamacare is an interesting case study in public opinion. It took some years for the public to warm up to it, in part due to the lack of a public relations blitz from the government. But people also needed to see and experience some of the benefits to themselves and to others in their social circles. Repeal of the law was opposed by a 3 to 1 margin in recent opinion polls, and calls to members of congress were running 50 to 1 against the repeal.

The message for climate change activists should be clear: It will be difficult to preserve, let alone expand, major initiatives like climate programs without strong public backing.

When we find lead in our drinking water, it is relatively easy to mobilize public opinion and demand action from the government. The impact of lead on human health in the short and medium terms can be readily demonstrated. There are probably not many in Flint, Michigan, who would oppose a cleaner water supply and no politician could get away with opposing lead-free water on the basis of cost. But we have struggled for more than two decades to get public opinion similarly behind climate change.

All indications are that the elimination of EPA’s climate change programs will not flood legislators with calls. According to a Pew Research survey, the US is among the countries least concerned about the impacts of climate change. While climate activists have largely focused on the long-term impacts and projections of what may happen by the year 2100, the challenge now is to create a sense of urgency about the short term.

We must steer the debate towards how climate change mitigation can provide tangible co-benefits in other domains. People need to see the upside of climate-friendly policies, while knowing that any costs will be shared broadly by society. Among the issues that matter to Americans on a daily basis, health and employment should be front and center while tackling climate change.

While a generally warmer climate is being linked to a number of health risks, we have to drill down to the underlying causes of climate change that also impact public health. Air pollution in the US causes about 135,000 premature deaths, 150,000 cases of hospitalization, and 18 million lost work days annually. Two major air pollutants, methane and black carbon, are also significant short-term contributors to climate change.

Cutting fugitive methane emissions in the oil and gas industry could be done with existing technologies that have a short payback period due to the economic value of the recovered methane. But in general, curbing methane and black carbon emissions will require regulations that simultaneously address public health and climate change. The EPA under the Obama administration did just that last year with a rule targeting methane emissions from new or modified oil and gas wells – this was a historic first step that might not survive now without public support, but very few people have even heard about it. We simply have not talked about how co-benefits in such cases can produce good outcomes for society.

We must also highlight the co-benefits of climate protection on the employment side. Clean-energy sectors are among the most dynamic when it comes to job growth, with about 800,000 Americans already employed in low-carbon energy generation and nearly a million workers focused on alternative fuel and fuel-efficient vehicles. Another 2.2 million jobs involve energy efficiency products and services.

These sectors can more than make up for job losses in the coal industry now and over time in other industries tied to fossil fuels. But that does not necessarily imply that every impacted worker will be able to find new employment. Those of us seeking action on the climate front should recognize that there will be an unavoidable human cost to it and push for a compensation mechanism that provides job training and retirement packages to affected workers. Empathy for our fellow citizens might not have been part of the climate action vocabulary in the past, but it needs to be if we want to get everyone on the same side.

This reframing cannot just be a messaging strategy, but a real change in our approach that aligns a longer-term climate plan with measurable short-term solutions that can make a positive difference to people’s lives. Climate change mitigation that doesn’t speak to basic needs like health, jobs and financial security – and an approach that doesn’t identify with people’s anxieties and insecurities in these areas – will continue to face an uphill task getting the critical mass of public opinion required to secure Earth’s climate for the future.

Kumar Venkat is a technologist and writer based in Portland, Oregon. He was the founder of CleanMetrics Corp. and spent several years helping companies quantify and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in their production and operation.

June 30, 2012

It is a cliché that everything goes in cycles -- up and down, creation and destruction, end of one thing and the beginning of something else. It is also reality. I had the great fortune to run two small businesses back to back for the last 15+ years. The two businesses had some things in common: there were long periods when the business was all-consuming and working 6-7 days/week was the norm. In other ways, they were very different.

The first business was in electronic design automation (known as EDA, my area of specialty in the tech industry), where opportunities abounded and getting customers was never a problem. I started the second business, CleanMetrics, at the end of 2007 – intending to solve some important problems in sustainability using rigorous analytical methods, and also to find out if I could “do well and do good” at the same time.

I am proud of what we were able to accomplish in four short years: innovative software tools for life cycle assessment (LCA) and resource efficiency, the largest LCI database for North American food production and processing, a long list of publications (peer-reviewed journal papers, book chapters, conference papers, trade press articles), and some three dozen customers in diverse economic sectors -- focusing on numbers and analysis rather than empty talk.

Although so many companies are now talking about “sustainability”, the market for analytical tools and services in this space became very soft in the last year or two – at least as seen from where I was sitting. I believe that the lack of a serious response to climate change and the resulting lack of clarity on GHG targets have been at the root of this, posing a serious challenge to solutions providers like CleanMetrics.

At the same time, I came across some interesting new career opportunities back in the tech sector. So, I have now "returned home” to work on next-generation technology (which happens to be microchips for mobile devices).

As we move forward, the informational resources and publications on the CleanMetrics site will continue to be available to researchers and practitioners. We are also hoping to make some of our tools and databases available at low/no cost for non-commercial research and academic use in the near future. More on that soon.

March 05, 2012

With the recent addition of the scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions accounting standard, there is at least a broad understanding of how corporate emissions should be quantified and what the benefits would be – even if only a small number of companies have adopted it so far. On the other hand, emissions associated with geographic regions not only lack a rigorous accounting standard but are also more difficult to quantify. And yet they are just as important for getting smarter about our resource uses and emissions.

A geographic region can be a community, city, metropolitan area, rural area, state, province, multi-state region, or any other area. It can be as large as a country or as small as a university campus. A region can be both a consumer and a producer of a large number of end products. A region can simultaneously be in numerous value chains – sometimes in the middle, at other times at the end, and occasionally right at the beginning where raw materials are extracted from the ground. Materials and energy may flow into a region, and they may flow out in other forms into other places.

Conceptually, this is not very different from a corporation that draws materials and energy from upstream suppliers, consumes some of it internally, and produces goods or services for others to consume downstream. The difference really comes down to the scale and diversity.

Cities, for example, are huge consumers of resources and are home to over half of the world’s population. On every type of resource use and activity – including obvious ones such as the building stock, land use, energy use, transportation, food consumption, and waste disposal – cities dwarf even the largest global corporations. Developing a geographic emissions inventory is vastly different from developing a corporate inventory – upstream and downstream players are not easily identifiable, and data availability is often limited to aggregate information within the geographic boundary.

The IPCC guidelines for national emissions inventories offer the most basic approach to a geographic inventory, and are often used at city and regional scales as well. These guidelines cover specific sectors within the geographic boundary, including fuel combustion, industrial processes, agriculture, forestry, land use and waste disposal. The result is an inventory of territorial emissions that ignores all upstream and downstream emissions.

Looking only at territorial emissions leads to the phenomenon of outsourced emissions where the net effect of trade shifts emissions from one country or region to another. The United States, for example, is running a trade deficit around $500 billion, which means that emissions adjusted for imports and exports would be about 8-9% above the territorial emissions for energy use and industrial processes.

The same problem occurs at smaller geographic scales. If a city doesn’t produce its own electricity (and most cities don’t), then all emissions associated with electricity production would be ignored in a territorial inventory. In a corporate setting, this would be the equivalent to not counting any of the scope 2 emissions. This may be an easy problem to solve, but then what about the scope 3 emissions occurring not only in the upstream energy supply chain but also in the material supply chains? And what about the energy and materials exported to other places?

One answer to this is to change the focus from production to consumption, and account for exports and imports using economic data. An example of this is the recent consumption-based inventory published for the state of Oregon. Such a top-down approach can be complicated and time-consuming, and may still contain uncertainties because of considerable lags in the availability of trade data and inaccuracies in applying them at the level of a state or smaller boundary.

A bottom-up approach, relying on activity data collected from within a region, would resemble a corporate emissions inventory but would have to deal with some unique problems such as double counting of emissions. A minimum viable geographic emissions inventory (as outlined by the UNEP) would include:

Scope 1 (in-boundary) emissions for the IPCC sectors.

Scope 2 emissions from imported electricity and imported energy such as heating or cooling.

Scope 3 emissions from transmission/distribution losses for imported electricity, waste disposed outside the boundary, and marine/aviation fuel combustion (usually based on fuel loaded within the boundary).

Reduction of scope 1 emissions to account for the export of electricity or other energy, and import of waste.

This, of course, leaves out the upstream energy supply chain and the entire material supply chain. If material imports – such as construction materials and food – are included in the inventory, then it would be unreasonable not to adjust for materials exported to other regions. This immediately raises the data collection and analysis requirements to a level that could make it impractical for smaller regions such as cities. A number of academic studies (such as a recent University of Colorado study of US cities) have looked at this problem and have proposed compromise solutions that account for some of the missing pieces. Other issues – such as carbon sequestration in biomass and structures – have yet to be addressed.

It is clear that the state of the art in inventorying geographic emissions is far from being complete. Rather than being a purely accounting exercise, a geographic emissions inventory ultimately needs to provide insight into resource uses in a region and help generate better policies. Recent studies have shown that a wide range of factors influence emissions in urban areas. Some factors, such as climate and advantages of location, are fixed. But others – such as urban form, building stock, power generation, transport patterns and waste disposal methods – may be more amenable to changes in varying degrees. By comparing emissions inventories, cities could learn best practices from others that are situated in similar geophysical conditions.

There is a compelling case for moving geographic emissions inventories to a point where the emissions footprint can serve as a good indicator of regional resource use and efficiency.

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Kumar Venkat is president and chief technologist at CleanMetrics Corp., a provider of analytical solutions for the sustainable economy.

February 21, 2012

At first glance, CO2 emissions growth from fossil fuels and industrial processes look fairly benign for developed countries. Compared to a 1990 baseline, emissions peaked in 2007 at just 0.4% above the baseline and then dropped for the next two years (based on UNFCCC data). By 2009, emissions for developed countries were 8.7% below the 1990 level. This drop, of course, wouldn’t have happened without help from the global financial crisis. But there is more to this story.

Soon after, in 2010, global CO2 emissions increased by the highest recorded rate as the world bounced back from the financial crisis. Emissions for developed countries followed suit but remained well below the 1990 level. Does this mean that emissions in developed countries have stabilized even as their economies continue to grow?

The missing piece of the puzzle is the significant increase in outsourced production starting in the mid-1990s.

When production is outsourced to developing countries, developed countries see relative stability in their territorial emissions, which are emissions produced within their geographical boundaries. But in reality, emissions are relocated to the developing world and outsourced along with the production. When finished products are delivered to consumers, those emissions are embodied in the products but are not attributed to those consuming the products. The reporting protocols today are designed for territorial emissions, so outsourced emissions remain entirely with countries that produce goods and services for export.

This is similar to companies reporting only their scope 1 and 2 emissions and taking no responsibility for scope 3 emissions. At a minimum, developed countries see a highly skewed picture of their own emissions. While it may appear that their absolute emissions are stabilizing, consumption-based accounting shows that emissions have actually increased significantly and more than wiped out the reductions made under the Kyoto Protocol.

The chart below (from Peters et al. in Nature Climate Change) captures the net effect of international trade and shows how consumption-based emissions have increased much more rapidly than the production-based territorial emissions for developed countries.

The situation in the US appears worse. Territorial emissions peaked in 2007 at 20% above the 1990 baseline and were 7.9% higher by 2009 before full recovery from the financial crisis – well above the emission growths of developed countries as a whole. Adjusted for net international trade, consumption-based US emissions grew even faster than that relative to baseline – over 29% higher in 2007 and nearly 16% higher in 2009. In the chart below, I have combined data from two sources (UNFCCC and Peters et al in PNAS) to approximately plot the US emissions profile through 2009. Data for 2010 are not available yet, but the post-crisis US emissions are likely to have resumed their upward trend.

We can expect current annual US emissions to be roughly 8-9% higher than territorial emissions after adjusting for trade. This may look like a small increase in the grand scheme of things, but it makes it much harder to return to the reference emissions of 1990 at the national level (according to the IEA, emissions need to be roughly at the 1990 level by 2035 in order to keep the average global temperature increase under the 2 degrees C). Back in 1990 when the US was less dependent on imports, trade would have increased emissions by about 1.5%.

The first takeaway from all this is that a full system perspective is needed to really understand things like national and regional CO2 emission trends. As any LCA practitioner will tell you, how system boundaries are drawn can make a big difference. Second, consumption of material goods continues to drive increases in emissions even as a big part of the production is outsourced. Despite transitioning toward a more service and information based economy in recent years, there are no signs of emissions leveling off anytime soon in the world’s largest economy.

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Kumar Venkat is president and chief technologist at CleanMetrics Corp., a provider of analytical solutions for the sustainable economy.

There probably isn't enough money in the world -- or time -- to label everything that we produce and consume with accurate carbon footprints. More importantly, consumers haven't asked for it. The most common consumer response to these labels is confusion, followed perhaps by irritation at having to look at one more number when they're simply trying to grab that gallon of milk and be on their way.

This doesn't mean that carbon (or other) footprinting is dead. But it does mean that the exercise of footprinting products and organizations needs to be rethought. The question is, what can we really do with the carbon footprint metric?

We know that the carbon footprint tracked over time is not only a good indicator of energy use -- including reliance on fossil energy and transition to renewables -- but also of energy and material efficiencies, waste reduction, land use and other resource uses. It is hard to compress all of this into a single number, so the carbon footprint is never going to be a perfect measure of environmental impact.

There is, in fact, an excellent analogy with another widely used single metric, and that is time. Lean processes -- ubiquitous now in many economic sectors -- are based on the premise that compressing time reveals hidden quality problems and that their resolution leads to more efficient, cost-effective business processes. Now, time is not a perfect measure of quality either, but it works reasonably well not only in manufacturing but also in service industries [PDF]. Lean has been successful because it is always easier to understand and optimize one variable -- in one dimension -- rather than multiple variables that may or may not be correlated.

Lean processes can be green as well in many cases, but that is not necessarily true [PDF] in general. After all, they haven't been optimized explicitly for low environmental impact. That is really where carbon comes in. Analogous to the use of time in lean processes, carbon can be the single variable to optimize in what we might call clean processes (what I really mean, of course, is cleaner processes).

Note also that lean service processes -- such as health care delivery or auto repair [PDF] -- may require some modest changes in consumer behavior, but these are usually not painful changes. Consumers are often delighted by the changes, which involve same-day appointments, minimal waiting (compressing time!), and highly streamlined operations. In the same spirit, successful clean processes cannot impose additional burdens on consumers -- and that includes comparing carbon footprint labels. It is also inefficient to leave all the optimization to consumers, who can only choose between finished products or choose to consume less of something.

If there is an opportunity to take carbon out of a product, it should happen before the product (or service) makes contact with consumers. This means higher efficiencies, lower waste, better choice of raw materials, and ultimately cleaner products and processes that are fully optimized for carbon. The business case for doing this would be to reduce the cost of production and delivery of anything, while providing a more pleasing experience to consumers.

There may well be additional reasons for carbon footprinting, such as reporting and transparency requirements. But these often get entangled in incomplete analyses and partial disclosures where the aim is to shore up a corporation's green credentials. To take the time and care needed to do the footprinting right, companies need more compelling primary reasons.

Nothing is more compelling than an improved bottom line and potentially happier consumers.

Kumar Venkat is president and chief technologist at CleanMetrics Corp., a provider of analytical solutions for the sustainable economy.

February 10, 2012

Greenhouse gas emissions are at record highs. The world's major emitters recently failed once again to reach an agreement to limit emissions. In the midst of all the gloom and doom, it is understandable that the International Energy Agency's latest World Energy Outlook has not received the attention it deserves.

But anyone seriously concerned about climate change needs to understand two fundamental constraints that emerge from this report. How we respond to these two constraints will determine if there is a reasonable way forward on climate change.

The first constraint has to do with trajectory of energy-related CO2 emissions required to keep the average temperature increase below the commonly accepted 2 degrees C threshold [PDF]. In the graph below, the IEA calls it the "450 Scenario" where the atmospheric CO2 concentration stays within 450 ppm.

It requires emissions to peak around 2017. By 2035, emissions in the 450 Scenario need to be just half of what we would have in the business-as-usual Current Policies Scenario. The difference between these two scenarios is as much as 22 Gt CO2 per year by 2035, about two-thirds of today's total energy-related CO2 emissions.

Before we ponder how to find those reductions with current and future energy technologies and efficiencies, here is the second constraint that makes the task even more difficult. If we take no further action by 2017 -- a likely situation -- emissions locked in by existing capital stock (such as power plants, buildings, factories, and vehicles) will use up the entire carbon budget for 2035, leaving no maneuvering space to achieve the 450 Scenario.

As the graph below shows, these locked-in emissions will ramp down as older capital stock is phased out over time, but all replacements and expansions will have to be zero carbon!

The IEA estimates that demand for primary energy will increase by one-third between 2010 and 2035, and 75 percent of all the energy will come from fossil fuels in 2035. The new BP Energy Outlook concurs with this trend and estimates an 81 percent share for fossil fuels in 2030. The 450 Scenario will be out of reach without rapid breakthroughs in renewable energy, battery technologies, biofuels, and carbon capture and storage (CCS). Unless, perhaps, if we are willing to think outside the box.

What if we could find practical and affordable emission reduction and sequestration opportunities outside of the energy realm that could offset a big part of fossil fuel emissions through 2035 and buy us the additional time needed for a full transition to clean energy?

A survey of recent research shows some remarkably simple ideas that, in some combination, may have the potential to take us to 2035 on a path equivalent to the 450 Scenario. I'll highlight three that seem down to earth, two of which provide substantial non-climate benefits:

1. Black carbon reduction. About 18 percent of global warming is caused by black carbon, a result of incomplete combustion of both fossil fuels and solid biofuels. Black carbon stays in the atmosphere for several days to weeks, and works by absorbing light and radiating out heat. The heated air molecules last longer and can move long distances. Black carbon also reduces the earth's reflectivity (known as albedo) when deposited on snow and ice, which further increases warming.

Solutions include: reducing particulate emissions from diesel vehicles; transitioning to clean-burning biomass stoves, brick kilns and coke ovens; and banning agricultural waste burning. There are large non-climate benefits by way of avoided premature deaths and reduced health costs and, to a lesser extent, avoided crop losses. Black carbon is expected to figure prominently in the next IPCC report.

3. Carbon sequestration via fallen-log burial. Dead trees on forest floors decompose in about 10 years, releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Slowing down the decomposition to a longer time frame (100-1,000 years) by burying or storing the fallen logs in anaerobic conditions could potentially sequester large amounts of carbon at a relatively low cost.

The potential is estimated to be around 10 Gt of carbon each year. There are risks, however, such as nutrient lockup, habitat loss, disturbance to forest floors and soils, and the need for some road construction. If these risks are managed well, while utilizing just a small part of the potential as I have assumed here, the impact could be substantial in the short term.

I have summarized rough estimates of climate change mitigation potentials, costs and benefits (by 2035 and beyond, in today's dollars, using current technologies) for the three solutions in the table below based on literature sources. More than half of the 22 Gt CO2 gap between Current Policies and the 450 Scenario could be closed using these three solutions alone if they are ramped up to scale before 2035.

In conjunction with advances in clean energy, efficiencies and conservation, these solutions could put us within striking distance of meeting the 2 degrees C challenge.

An approximate annual cost for the three solutions is about $238 billion at full scale, with the returns from enhanced crop yield and health benefits far exceeding this amount. Moreover, investments in these solutions would stimulate local manufacture and employment, and climate change mitigation by itself might have some additional monetary value in the future; however, the benefits are substantial even without including these.

While the non-climate benefits of black carbon reduction are greatest in the regions where much of the emissions would be reduced – particularly China, India and other developing nations in Asia and Africa – they do not necessarily go to those who might bear the costs. In addition, methane is fairly well mixed in the atmosphere and the benefits of methane reduction are more global.

This means that most of the mitigation will probably need to be funded by public means, particularly where the air pollution comes from public infrastructure, residential sources, small businesses and farms. Air quality regulations could be another mechanism to cut back on industry-generated black carbon and methane.

There are several additional opportunities at varying levels of cost, benefit and risk. Here is a sampling of some simple as well as grand ideas: soil carbon sequestration using biochar [PDF]; utilizing a larger percentage of the fallen-log burial potential; painting roofs white in regions with low winter heating needs (could be particularly effective with black carbon reduction); harvesting fallen logs to produce eco-neutral fuel for existing coal-fired power plants; and large-scale irrigated afforestation of subtropical deserts.

All of this suggests that there are plausible trajectories that can keep the long-term average temperature increase under the 2 degrees C limit. In the short term, any such path would involve readily available technologies, a highly engineered approach, modest public spending, and benefits that extend far beyond climate.

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Kumar Venkat is president and chief technologist at CleanMetrics Corp., a provider of analytical solutions for the sustainable economy.

February 05, 2012

Climate change seems to have taken a back seat lately both in policy debates and business strategies. But this is generally not the case in the research community, where rigorous analyses of climate change mitigation proposals are being published regularly. Herewith are six lesser-known recent findings that help separate the promise from the hype.

About 18% of global warming is caused by black carbon, which is not a greenhouse gas. A result of incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and solid biofuels, black carbon stays in the atmosphere for just days to weeks and works by absorbing light and radiating out heat. The heated air molecules last longer and can move long distances. Black carbon also reduces the earth’s albedo (reflectivity) when deposited on snow and ice, which further increases warming. Black carbon reduction could emerge as a major climate change mitigation technique with significant health benefits.

Among greenhouse gases, methane emissions present a mitigation opportunity similar in scale to black carbon. The energy industry (oil and gas production, gas transmission, and coal mining) and waste handling (municipal waste, wastewater, and livestock manure) are two large contributors, both of which have readily available technologies to control emissions. Lower methane levels also help increase crop yields.

When dead trees on forest floors decompose, they release previously sequestered carbon back into the atmosphere in about 10 years. Slowing down this decomposition by burying or storing the fallen logs in anaerobic conditions could potentially sequester large amounts of additional carbon for hundreds of years at a relatively low cost. The mitigation potential is larger than that of black carbon or methane. There are risks that would have to be managed, such as nutrient lockup, habitat loss, disturbance to forest floors and soils, and the need for some road construction.

Can afforestation (planted forests) sequester enough carbon to seriously mitigate climate change? Since afforestation reduces surface albedo and increases absorption of solar radiation, the net benefits are generally low and even negative in some cases. A simulation study has shown that afforestation is much more effective in the tropics – owing to the higher evapotranspiration – than in temperate and boreal regions. There is at least one interesting proposal out there to “end” global warming through irrigated afforestation of subtropical deserts.

Can white roofs be part of the solution to tackle climate change? White roofs do reduce the energy needed to cool buildings in the summer, but could increase energy use for heating in the winter – which might more than offset the savings. Moreover, while white roofs do cool urban surfaces – counteracting the urban heat island effect – they reduce cloudiness slightly and allow more sunlight to reach the earth’s surface. And the light reflected from the roofs cause some additional warming through absorption by black carbon. The likely net effect is additional warming of the earth – except perhaps in areas with low winter heating needs and in conjunction with black carbon reduction.

Does composting always produce lower greenhouse gas emissions than landfilling organic waste? Composting does require energy for turning the piles in order to minimize methane emissions, but finished compost could replace synthetic fertilizer. On the other hand, landfills do generate methane, but increasingly much of that is collected and used as fuel or flared. Plus, landfills provide carbon storage through the undecomposed portion of the waste. One recent study found that windrow composting of yard waste produces significantly higher net emissions compared to using that waste as alternative daily cover in landfills equipped with gas collection.

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Kumar Venkat is president and chief technologist at CleanMetrics Corp., a provider of analytical solutions for the sustainable economy.

December 13, 2011

As the holiday shopping season got off to an early start this year, clothing company Patagonia took a courageous stand with a full-page ad in The New York Times telling consumers to buy less. The ad went on to say, "Don't buy what you don't need. Think twice before you buy anything."

If you are like me, you probably have an uneasy feeling in your stomach when you hear the term "sustainable consumption." After more than two decades of talking about it, and in spite of advances in resource efficiencies, we are not all that much closer to consuming sustainably. The fact is, it is enormously difficult to do this without actually reducing what we consume.

Take clean energy, for example. Supplies are currently limited, costs can be higher and breakthroughs are still needed in battery technologies, solar energy and biofuels before renewables can replace fossil energy on a large scale. In time, with the right investments and policies, the breakthroughs can happen, but we are not there yet.

Can we rely primarily on energy efficiencies in the meantime? Up to a point, yes; but efficiencies are not a panacea for all our energy problems. Energy efficiencies are known to cause rebounds, which can reduce potential energy savings by stimulating additional energy use.

What about an idea such as using white roofs to reflect sunlight and reduce the energy cost of cooling? The downside to this, as a recent study found, is that the additional sunlight reflected from roofs could be absorbed by dark pollutants in the atmosphere and end up warming the Earth.

In recent years, only the financial crisis has been able to curtail greenhouse gas emissions, both in the United States and globally. According to the International Energy Agency, global emissions dipped in 2009 because of the recession and then climbed back to a record level just a year later.

On the materials side, recycling is one activity that many of us participate in. And yet, closing the materials loop remains a challenge. Recycled materials clearly produce lower environmental impacts, including lower greenhouse gas emissions. But supplies are still limited, costs can sometimes be higher and further technological advances are needed to make the collection and processing of recyclables more efficient. There are many similarities between the market struggles of recycled materials and renewable energy.

What about the food sector? Isn't it more sustainable to eat organically produced food? Yes, with the caveat that several studies have noted lower efficiencies and yields in organic production -- so land use could increase as organic production expands. As far as locally produced food, greenhouse gas emissions are not significantly lower compared with food brought in from elsewhere (unless the food is air-freighted) and could be higher in some cases because of inefficient local transport.

My point is not that there are no good solutions; it is simply that virtually every solution out there is either incomplete or has a downside. We should still support the most promising solutions with our purchasing power and vote for policies that can take them further. We should also rethink the notion that we can consume our way to sustainability by always choosing the environmentally preferable products.

It is not just what we consume, it is also how much we consume.

Kumar Venkat is the founder and president of CleanMetrics Corp., a Portland-based provider of sustainability and resource efficiency solutions for businesses.

December 06, 2011

It took a major financial crisis to slightly slow down the global emissions of greenhouse gases. According to the International Energy Agency, emissions dipped in 2009 due to the recession and then climbed back to a record level just a year later. A new study from the Global Carbon Project confirms this trend and says 2010 saw the largest absolute jump in emissions in any year since the Industrial Revolution.

I couldn't help but contrast these grim numbers with the frenzy of the holiday shopping season. By now we are all well aware that we can make or break the economy through our purchasing habits.

I was feeling downright unpatriotic, having done less than my share of shopping this whole year, until I came across the clothing company Patagonia's full-page ad in the New York Times on Black Friday. Patagonia took a courageous stand and asked consumers to buy less. The ad went on to say, "Don't buy what you don't need. Think twice before you buy anything."

This raises an uncomfortable issue that's been literally swept under the rug for many years. After more than two decades of talking about sustainable consumption -- and in spite of advances in resource efficiencies and renewable energy -- we are not all that much closer to consuming sustainably. The fact is, it is enormously difficult to do this without actually reducing what we consume.

Take clean energy, for example. Supplies are currently limited, costs can be higher, and breakthroughs are still needed -- specifically in battery technologies, solar energy and biofuels -- before renewables can replace fossil energy on a large scale. In time, with the right investments and policies, the breakthroughs can happen but we are not there yet.

Moreover, the IEA estimates that 80 percent of emissions from the power sector in 2020 are already locked in because of existing power plants and new construction currently in the pipeline -- which would make it very challenging for emissions to peak in this decade and then decline per IPCC's stabilization scenario [PDF] to keep the mean temperature increase under 3 degrees C.

Can we rely primarily on energy efficiencies in the meantime? Up to a point, yes; but efficiencies are not a panacea for all our energy problems. Energy efficiencies are known to cause rebounds, which can reduce potential energy savings by stimulating additional energy use. Rebounds can occur economy-wide as well as at the level of individual consumers and firms.

On the materials side, most of us have participated in recycling for many years. And yet, closing the materials loop remains a challenge. Recycled materials clearly produce lower environmental impacts, including lower greenhouse gas emissions. But supplies are still limited, costs can sometimes be higher, and further technological advances are needed to make the collection and processing of recyclables more efficient. There are many similarities between the market struggles of recycled materials and renewable energy.

What about the food sector? Isn't it more sustainable to eat organically produced food? Yes, with the caveat that several studies have noted lower efficiencies and yields in organic production -- so land use could increase as organic production expands. As far as locally produced food, greenhouse gas emissions are not significantly lower compared to food brought in from elsewhere -- unless the food is air-freighted -- and could be higher in some cases because of inefficient local transport.

My point is not that there are no good solutions -- there are many brilliant ideas in the pipeline. But virtually every solution available today is either incomplete or has a downside, and is not quite ready to operate at a scale that can make a big difference. We should still support the most promising solutions with our purchasing power and vote for policies that can take them further. We should certainly choose the environmentally preferable products when we do need to buy something.

But the question that I struggle with is this: Can we really consume our way to sustainability? Many of us are involved in helping companies reduce the impacts of their production, but what about when we go home and turn into consumers? Is sustainability only about what we consume and not how much we consume?

When I first started thinking about sustainability in the late 1990s, it occurred to me that we are caught in a consumption trap. As consumers we control the fate of the economy -- we are responsible for two-thirds of all economic activity (in the U.S.). We also want the latest conveniences and comforts, which in turn requires increasing incomes. The result is a virtuous cycle of economic growth and consumption -- except for worsening climate change and resource depletion that can't be reversed.

Capping greenhouse gas emissions globally through tradable permits would have been one way to cut through this complexity and impose a strict limit on what economic activity can do to the planet's climate. As the world's major emitters mull over lesser options at the United Nations climate conference, I am reminded of the economist Herman Daly's words from the 1970s: "Sustainable development is about sufficiency as well as efficiency."

Kumar Venkat is president and chief technologist at CleanMetrics Corp., a provider of analytical solutions for the sustainable economy.

November 28, 2011

The dramatic improvements in efficient lighting technologies over the past three centuries have left the energy intensity of lighting unchanged. The higher energy efficiencies have all been used up by ever-expanding lighting applications. And the share of global GDP spent on lighting has remained constant during this period. This is just one example of the rebound effect, which potentially increases energy use as a result of new energy efficiencies.

So-called direct rebounds of up to 30 percent have been observed in automotive transport, heating, cooling and other consumer energy uses (this means energy savings were reduced by up to 30 percent). Rebound is not limited to end-use energy consumption. An empirical analysis of 30 US economic sectors shows significant energy consumption rebound in the production of goods and services between 1980 and 1995 (60 percent rebound in the 1990-95 period). If these results are correct and energy efficiency does not necessarily lead to a corresponding decrease in (conventional) energy use, there are serious implications for climate change mitigation.

Energy efficiency is a key component of IPCC’s climate stabilization scenarios. The IEA has stated that many industrial processes are using much more energy than the best available technology would permit. An application of the climate stabilization wedges suggests that over half of the GHG emissions reduction in the US will have to come from energy efficiencies. Moreover, lacking a strong climate policy in the US, most responsible businesses are relying on energy efficiency (and, more generally, resource efficiency) improvements to rein in their emissions. These are often below-cost opportunities that deliver a positive ROI.

The possibility of a rebound in energy use weakens the crucial link between energy efficiency and carbon reduction. This can, in fact, be a problem for any resource efficiency improvement and not limited to energy. A recent simulation study of the German economy indicates a 55 percent rebound following an increase in material efficiency and raises a provocative question: Is it possible to make permanent absolute reductions in resource consumption?

Defining Rebound

As the energy efficiency of a process increases, it reduces the implicit price of energy needed to run that process. A business could then expand its output by using more of that cheaper energy, or substitute energy for other (relatively more expensive) inputs to production. These are direct rebound effects.

At an indirect level, rebounds can occur from the embodied energy in new energy-efficient technologies and capital investments, as well as due to the re-investment of cost savings from energy efficiency improvements into other production. In addition, broad economy-wide energy efficiency improvements can drive energy prices down and encourage additional uses of energy that would not have occurred otherwise. The lower energy prices can also benefit the energy-intensive sectors of the economy by reducing their production costs and shift the composition of the economy toward those sectors.

Much of the debate on this topic appears to be over the size of the rebound effect, not its existence. If energy consumption is largely decoupled from economic growth, then energy rebounds may be small. A report from UKERC points out that the coupling between energy consumption and economic growth appears to be far stronger than normally assumed if energy sources are weighted by their relative economic productivity. This, in turn, would suggest a fairly large economy-wide rebound in energy use, although it is not a completely settled conclusion.

Policy Implications

One way to reduce both direct and indirect energy rebound effects is by keeping the cost of energy relatively constant as efficiency improves (similar considerations apply to material efficiency). The obvious tools include carbon taxes and emissions trading, both of which constrain carbon-based energy sources. Since efficiency improvements and opportunities will vary from sector to sector, an economy-wide carbon tax is likely to be a blunt instrument. The more flexible tradable permits are seen by some researchers as a superior tool.

A carbon price would allow for growth in energy use (and therefore economic growth) by meeting an increasing share of new energy demand with renewables, but there is no immediate prospect of pricing carbon emissions in the US. Moreover, technological challenges remain in any broad adoption of renewable energy. The current alternative to cap-and-trade is much more and better organized financing to make clean energy viable even without a price on carbon.

Business Response

Given the potential for rebound effects to undermine resource efficiency improvements, and the current lack of public policy to mitigate this, what can businesses do? Businesses do have control over direct rebounds in resource use. This would suggest that a way forward for responsible businesses is to focus on absolute reductions in their resource consumption and emissions. Consider these starting points:

Quantify and report all emission scopes. Include scope 3 so that all emissions are counted in the baseline and any improvements are always reported as a percentage of total emissions – even if approximate at first.

Absolute energy use will likely continue to increase for most businesses even after implementing energy efficiencies. The only way to sustain continuous emission reductions is by adding lower-carbon and zero-carbon energy sources to accommodate growth, while eliminating chunks of high-carbon energy usage through efficiencies and replacement. This may require using some of the savings from efficiencies to offset the potentially higher cost of cleaner energy (at least in the short term while technologies mature).

While pushing for and supporting the right policies and investments, businesses can certainly take concrete steps to ensure that higher resource efficiencies coexist with real carbon reductions within their operations.

Kumar Venkat is president and chief technologist at CleanMetrics Corp., a provider of analytical solutions for the sustainable economy.